


Windsong and Firefret

by Thimblerig



Series: The Lion and the Serpent [43]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Aftermath of trauma, Awkward cuddles, Gen, Prequel, Sharing a Bed, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-14 11:17:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11782035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/pseuds/Thimblerig
Summary: When he says, very softly, “And you don’t think I’m broken,” it’s easy to pretend you don’t hear.





	1. Athos

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mylos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mylos/gifts).



> For Mylos.
> 
> This does not actually fit your prompt. Chapter 2 will fit your prompt or I'll eat my hat.

_October_

 

“Spit it out, lad,” says old Dentremont, kindly.

You look up, startled from your hunch by the low campfire which crackles in the dismal autumn wind. Dentremont, the old soldier, drinks again from a mug of thin soup, eating when he gets the chance, even in the middle of the night. You drink again yourself, though it is not soup.

“Athos,” he says, “I can see you thinking from here.”

You flick your eyes again to two others in your party, wrapped securely in blankets and already asleep. Carefully, quietly, you ask the Lieutenant, “Are those two lovers?”

He glances over himself. “Nah, it’s not Porthos’ way,” Dentremont answers easily. “Young Aramis there just don’t like sleeping cold and I don’t blame him.” Fair enough. Aramis has southern blood by the look of it - maybe the boy isn't yet used to the climate. (His friend you’d thought might be a nobleman’s natural son, got on a Haitian mistress and sent to make his own name, which illusion you’d fostered until the first time you heard Porthos’ determinedly gutter brand of Parisian French. There’s a story there, but you simply can’t be bothered to hear it.)

The two have doubled up their bedding, Porthos on his back with one arm flung out, and Aramis draped half-across him like another blanket, his head tucked under his friend’s chin, body moving up and down with every surge of Porthos’ breath. You are still getting used to how they do things, here, in this supposedly crack Regiment: no batmen and hardly any grooms, a shared mess, few tents… they live almost like wolves and you suppose they sleep the same way. (And it’s not like you _care,_ not really. The King’s Musketeers are always thrown in the thick of the fighting; that’s all you want them for.)

Another recent recruit, Gaspard Grenouille, elbows you in the side. “That’s not _all_ he’d like to sleep with, eh? Eh?”

Dentremont and you stare at him, you impassive, Dentremont stern. “There’ll be none of that,” he says. “A kid like you is not in any standing to make japes.” Grenouille flushes to the roots of his judas-red hair and mumbles an awkward apology. Dentremont’s weathered face softens. “Better get some sleep yourself,” he tells him. “There’ll be fighting tomorrow, most like.”

He looks at you when the boy has found his own blankets, gaze sharpening. “We all have our little ways and Aramis’ is to get a bit,” he waves his gnarled hand, “touchy. Just tell him to leave off if he bothers you, or give a bit of a shove. He won’t fuss.”

“I really don’t care,” you tell him. You don’t. Aramis is popular in the Regiment, almost a pet, though they’re discreet about it and to his credit he doesn’t let himself get spoiled. Yet… when rations are short the boy is always one of the first to eat, and he is never sent out on the dreary night watches alone. At least a third of the veterans keep tabs on him, quietly lifting their eyes from the horse they’re grooming or tack they’re cleaning to clock him across the yard then turn back to their task. You don’t grudge the boy the attention - the amiable and charming never bothered you, though you have never been either yourself. He is pleasant enough company.

You take another swig from your wineskin and Dentremont seizes your wrist. “Enough of that,” he says, calm but with the solidity of the mountains from which he takes his name. “There’s fighting tomorrow. You don’t need the hangover.”

Spots of heat bloom in your cheeks. “I wasn’t -” you rasp.

“Do you know what men who seek their own death in battle find?” he asks mildly.

Your chin comes up and you grip the wineskin hard, feeling it slosh uneasily under your fingers.

“Dead friends,” he says.

Dropping the skin you shake off Dentremont’s hand and rise, face burning. Across the campfire you see the boy, Aramis, with one black eye open, watching you.

You stalk into the night.

 

**

 

_November_

 

“Why are you here?” you ask eventually.

Aramis, slouched against your icy window, points silently at the thick candle steadily burning in your iron wall sconce.

“I’m not the only one still awake around here.”

He shrugs. He’s not stopping you drinking; this is as far as you care to dwell on the matter. (The wine is thin and sour, but it takes the edge off well enough.)

“There was a man I knew at the Battle of Montauban,” he says after a time, gazing through the dirty glass into the night. “He was caught in a bombardment, and a wall fell, and then, to add insult to injury, a wagon load of salted fish collapsed upon him.” He mimes the rain of falling food with expressive fingers. “We dug him out eventually and he was fine, just fine, marched in the assault the next day, won honours for himself… a man of glory.” He tilts his head to rest against the glass. “Then they served fish for dinner that Friday and he had quite a funny turn.” Waggling his fingers woefully he adds, “and he retired to a farm in Gascony.” He winces. _”Gascony.”_

“Was he a friend?”

“Not particularly.”

Drinking more wine, thin and sour, you consider the story. You don’t know why he’s telling you this - there are currents and customs in the Regiment of which you are still unaware, unspoken histories and half-told jests. Young Aramis is worse than most for riddling talk. (Perhaps you _have_ drunk a little much tonight. No. It’s just that you’re tired.)

Then you spit your wine.

“You were at Montauban in ‘21? What were you, _twelve?”_

He blinks at you and then says, solemnly, hand on heart, “I celebrated my seventeenth birthday the day we took the breach, Athos, you have my word of honour.”

You stare at him in the low, warm candlelight. It’s true he has a man’s height, Aramis, yet something about him has always suggested the young, the new, the unformed. It’s not just his round cheeks and pink ears, his hectic energy and stubborn insistence on proving himself the best marksman in Paris. There’s something a little lost about him, a sense of laces untied that you associate with youth. (But Thomas was never lost: he was always a child of the sun.)

“How long have you been a Musketeer?” you ask, and he holds up three fingers. You don’t think he means months.

Aramis’ smiles, foxlike. “I’m keeping my looks, I see.” Then his face falls, fretful. “But it seems my apparent youth is off-putting to you… I’ll have to think on this.”

“I don’t dislike you,” you tell him and he smiles again, small and soft. It is unexpectedly pleasant, warm as the best brandy sitting comfortable in your belly.

“What are you watching out there?” you ask at last.

“Only the snow,” he answers softly, “the first of the season.”

 _Doesn’t like to sleep cold,_ Dentremont had told you. _Touchy._ You wonder why he isn’t with his best friend and, as if picking it out of your head, he stretches like a cat and says, “Porthos has affairs of his own.” His eyes twinkle as he says, “Very pretty ones. A gentleman does not intrude.”

“Hn.” You finish your bottle, still sober enough to avoid the bitter-tasting dregs. There’s something you’re missing here - quotes from a book you haven’t yet read. And you don’t _care_ to read it so when he says, very softly, “And you don’t think I’m broken,” it’s easy to pretend you don’t hear.

The boy - _Aramis_ \- seems set to plant himself by your window like a box of medicinal herbs. _Just tell him to leave off if he bothers you,_ Dentremont had said. _Give him a bit of a shove: he won’t fuss._

It’s late and your bottles are all drunk dry. You kick off your boots and doff your jacket, crawling under your thin and scratchy blanket. Facing the wall you say, “Stay if you like. There’s room here for two.”

“I thought you’d never ask!” he quips. You can hear another grin in his voice and sigh silently.

But he’s quiet as he eases in under your blanket, and warm and peaceful against your back.

You sleep.


	2. Porthos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _But tonight, at least, wrapped around him in the dark, it feels like your opinion matters, as if you perch on the spindle of a great balance..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My hat is safe!

_November_

 

“How was your date with the little comte?” you ask Aramis, keeping your voice low in the warm darkness of your quarters.

“It wasn’t a date,” he answers, cuddling into your side under the blanket. You can practically feel his eyes rolling. “But it’s early days yet.”

You chuckle knowing he can feel it through your ribs, enjoying the warmth of him against you, and the weight. Nights like this have become more scarce lately as he heals, as the nightmares slowly fall away and his desperation to feel another’s breath and heart even in sleep finally fades. You will miss them.

It’s for the best, prob’ly. You remind yourself of that. Certainly your love life is more… abundant, when you’re not listening for a quiet scratching at the door in the dark watches of the night. And the splint on a broken bone has to come off eventually or the arm underneath it will wither and atrophy, you know that. But you’ll miss it. You used to sleep like this with Flea and Charon when you were children, as innocent as you were ever going to be, and before that with your mother - it’s a peaceful way to do things, you reckon. There’s an odd sense of accomplishment in it, also: _I’m the one who can do this for you. I’m the one who keeps you safe at night._

“And you?” Aramis asks. “Was your dalliance with the Marquise and her maid as educational as hoped for?”

“Oh my word, yes.” _Abundant_ was a good word for last night… “One of ‘em dyes her hair.” To his pricked ears you add, “But a gentleman could not _possibly_ divulge which.”

“Of course not,” he agrees, though without much enthusiasm, then says, “Porthos, it galls me to say it but I believe I am in need of an alternate approach. If you - given a hypothetical situation wherein you were interested in men in _that_ way and wanted to catch the _eye_ of the little comte as opposed to his disinterested _friendship,_ then how -”

“I don’t like him enough to care,” you say.

“You don’t like him?” Aramis asks in a very small voice.

Later you will learn that telling Aramis not to love is akin to suggesting the rain fall at another hour: utterly pointless, however much you want to. He’s got no sense about it, or balance. No self-preservation.

But tonight, at least, wrapped around him in the dark, it feels like your opinion _matters,_ as if you perch on the spindle of a great balance ready to tip your weight into one of the pans. It’s an odd feeling. And you _don’t_ like Athos. 

From his drawling tones to his barely concealed disdain for the food, his bewilderment at any barracks chore that isn’t sharpening or cleaning a weapon, his perpetual drunkenness - if God had designed a man to put your back up without ever giving you an actual excuse to punch him Athos would be that man. Worst of all he’s using the Regiment, the Regiment of Musketeers of the King’s House that is the pinnacle of your career, using it as a tool for his own destruction and you _fucking hate him for it._ This is who Aramis is dancing after, still rhapsodising on his pretty hands.

But… Aramis _is_ dancing, eyes bright, concocting one ridiculous flirtation after another, each sinking, unnoticed, in Athos’ wine-cup. Christ, it’s so good to see your friend _play._

So you take a deep breath and settle easily under his weight and say, instead of all that, “His pauldron’s too shiny. Needs some scratches.”

His voice curls out of the darkness, considering. “We could scuff it up for him tomorrow, maybe?”

You reach out a hand and rub between his shoulder blades - he’s sleepy enough to let you. “Yeah, maybe.” If Athos breaks your friend’s heart you can always kill him. It’s really that simple.

“Here, you,” you say, tapping his back with one finger, “tell me another.”

“Pff, really?” He yawns and spins you a tale of his father’s vineyard in rural Picardy, a sunlit place where the wind doesn't blow and nothing hurts. It’s alien to you, as strange as the moon might be could you reach it, but he makes it sound so pretty, describing the sweet sun-warmed tenderness of grapes pulled off a dry vine and his papa’s slow, sure hands grafting slips of wood together. You don’t ask why he left.

Together you wind down into sleep.

 

**

 

_February_

 

It’s not the cold that wakes you, though it is _very_ cold. 

Nor was it the feeling of bodies moving around you in the shared tent - in close quarters your sleeping mind never takes it personal when another man jostles you.

It’s the sound.

The soft shushing grind of a ramrod down a gun barrel has you awake instantly with ice-water down your spine, shaking out of your blankets and grabbing for your own pistols, which… aren’t there.

Swearing to yourself you ease out of the tent. Whatever’s coming, hiding under bare canvas won’t do you any good, and you might manage a sneak-and-grab of whoever’s out there. You hadn’t expected any trouble on this mission - conveying private letters, yeah? - but trouble seems to have found you.

The ground is white under the moon: an unexpected snowfall has made it stark against the black trunks of fir-trees, and the fire’s out (fucking Athos, it was his job to bank it). 

Voices. Soft.

“Who’s going to eat my eyes?” you hear the little comte say.

They’re at the edge of your little campsite, Aramis with his back against a black tree. All of your guns are laid out before him. Methodically he takes up another and loads it.

Athos crouches in front of him, face very blank and one hand lifted, frozen in the act of reaching out to Aramis. _Who’s going to eat my eyes?_

“The crows and ravens,” Aramis answers solemnly. “But don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.”

“I thank you for it. You are a good friend, Aramis.”

Aramis smiles at him, small and inexpressibly sweet. Christ. He hasn’t done this in a while, the sleepwalking - when whatever he was dreaming tangles with some urgency in the waking world and he is _up_ and _moving_ and, with his dyed-in-grain skill at weapons, frankly alarming.

His smile widens as he sees you. “Porthos!”

And, because God hates you, he continues, “Marsac _found_ you!”

Your fist clenches despite itself. But the thing is, he isn’t ever going to settle until you do the next part. Because he is an idiot who doesn’t know who a good friend is. Because his sleeping mind worries. Because this is not the time for hard truths.

So you loosen your shoulders and open your hand, and lie. “Yeah, we found him. He sent us out looking. _He was really worried about you.”_

“Is Marsac alright?” Aramis asks plaintively. Marsac is going to die with your hands about his scrawny neck if you ever catch him, that’s God’s own truth.

The little comte has been watching, eyes flicking back and forth between you. He looks confused: it’s not Athos’ best look. “I’ll set the fire again,” he says.

“No!” Aramis hisses. “Do you _want_ them to know we aren’t all dead?”

Athos glances at you and you glare back. He twitches, pauses, twitches again. “Then perhaps, my friend,” he says in his beautiful drawl, “perhaps you would do me the honour of allowing me to sit with you.”

“While we wait for Marsac?”

His eyes twitch at you again, troubled. “While we wait for Marsac.”

The pair of you bracket Aramis where he sits against the tree, layering him in every blanket and cloak you have, until finally his shivering fades and his head drops, fallen into sleep.

“You have no right to judge,” you tell Athos levelly over your friend’s head. “It’s just sleepwalking and it’s getting better, and even if it weren’t - you have no right to judge.”

His breath steams white in the moonstruck air. “Alright,” he says quietly, his white hand pulling a fold of fallen blanket tenderly over your friend. “Alright.”

Guess you'll keep him then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is how Athos learned to _hate_ Marsac, whom he had never met...


End file.
